Islamic Informed Environmental Governance in the Age of Ecological Crisis: A Maqāṣid al-Sharī‘ah Perspective

Abstract

This article examines the contribution of Islamic legal thought to the formulation of a Islamic informed environmental governance framework amid the increasingly complex global ecological crisis. Employing a normative critical qualitative approach and trans-disciplinary analysis, the study integrates classical and contemporary Islamic legal literature with theories of environmental governance and environmental ethics, as well as findings from modern ecological science. The findings demonstrate that Islamic legal principles can be reconstructed into environmental governance through two interrelated mechanisms. First, mutual critical reconstruction enables ecological science to expand juristic understandings of environmental harm and interdependence, while Islamic legal reasoning provides normative criteria for evaluating the justice and legitimacy of environmental responses. Second, these reconstructed principles are operationalized through a recursive governance cycle linking Islamic based normative sources, ethical translation, institutional mediation, policy implementation, and evaluative feedback. Based on these mechanisms, this study proposes a Islamic informed environmental governance model that moves beyond the normative integration of Islamic environmental values by providing a systematic pathway for translating Islamic legal norms into governance practices. Instruments such as fatwas, fiqh doctrines, and waqf mechanisms can thereby inform institutional deliberation, community action, and policy development. The model’s distinctive contribution lies in combining mutual epistemological reconstruction with an institutionally mediated and continuously revisable governance proces